We read both books - Holy Blood, Holy Grail and the Da Vinci Code.
Da Vinci was fast paced, clever, interesting. Holy Blood, Holy Grail was heavy and a little boring. From Yahoo:
"Both books explore theories that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, the couple had a child and the bloodline survives, ideas dismissed by most historians and theologians." "The Da Vinci Code" author Dan Brown and his publishing house were cleared of copyright infringement in a British court Friday, with the judge finding the lawsuit based on a contrived and "selective number of facts and ideas."
What strikes us is the coincidence that the Judas gospel appears at the same time:
The manuscript claims that Jesus revealed "secret knowledge" to Judas and instructed him to turn Jesus over to Roman authorities, said Coptic studies scholar Stephen Emmel of Germany's University of Munster, one of the restoration team members. In the gospel text, Judas is given private instruction by Jesus and is granted a vision of the divine that is denied to other disciples, who do not know that Jesus has requested his own betrayal. Rather than acting out of greed or malice, Judas is following orders when he leads soldiers to Jesus, the gospel says.
